


Step in Time

by RunRabbitRun



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Dancing, Fluff, Gen, Star Spangled Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 05:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1886766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunRabbitRun/pseuds/RunRabbitRun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Star Spangled Exchange: Steve finally learns to dance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step in Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [captainsandsoldiers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainsandsoldiers/gifts).



> Unbeta'd and a day late! Because I suck :P

“I wanna go dancing,” Bucky says as he peppers his scrambled eggs. “Pass the ketchup.”

“What?” says Steve, forkful of eggs hanging comically halfway between his plate and his mouth. Natasha raises a perfect brow at him nudges him under the table.

“Pass the ketchup.”

“No before that,” Steve says. Beside him, Sam chuckles and slides the ketchup over to Bucky.

“I _want_ to go _dancing_ ,” Bucky repeats, a little petulant. He flips open the ketchup and liberally applies it to his eggs.

Sam grimaces. “That’s foul.”

“You put hot sauce on yours, birdbrain, you have no room to judge,” Bucky snipes back.

“Wait, Bucky, you want to go _dancing_?”

“I, uh, yeah,” Bucky says, glancing aside and right at Steve, sitting up straighter and lifting his chin. The unsteady bravado makes Steve’s heart ache a little, but he’s getting used to these flashes of Old Bucky. There’s more and more of them now, and each one makes Steve’s gut do a backflip. “I wanna go dancing. Like we used to?”

Steve grins hard. “You were a much better dancer than I ever was, Buck.”

“If you can take down an aircraft with nothing but your shield, you can _probably_ dance,” Natasha reasons.

“Easy for you to say, ballerina,” Steve says. “Being able to fight and being able to dance are completely different.”

“Not really,” Sam says. “I do know a place we could… actually, nevermind.”

“What?” asks Bucky.

“It’s a club, and there _is_ dancing, but it’s probably not your style,” Sam teases. “Too many young whippersnappers doing the dirty dancing for you two geezers.”

“Oh Lordy,” Steve deadpans “You young people and your hippity-hoppity music. Does my hip right in.”

“Oh my God,” Sam cackles and buries his laughing face in his hands. Bucky doesn’t laugh, but he does crack a smile and busies himself with his thoroughly ketchuped eggs. Natasha smirks, but then looks considering.

“I know a place that might be more to your taste,” she says. “You’ll need to dress up, though. And you,” she points her fork at Steve, “Will need to learn to dance.”

“You can teach us both,” Bucky says, his eyes bright. “I… I’ll need a refresher.”

“Can do,” Natasha says, her eyes glinting in a way that tells Steve he’s about to have another _Natasha Is Here To Fix Your Life, You Dork_ lesson. “Sam can help me.”

“Sam?” Steve says, turning to see Sam grinning bashfully. “I didn’t know you were a hoofer.”

“I may have taken a dancing class. In college,” Sam says slyly.

“He can _waltz_ ,” Natasha says, like a dirty secret.

“Can you show me good time, handsome?” Bucky simpers, giving Sam ridiculous doe eyes. It’s pure Old Bucky and Steve’s heart _soars_.

 

“ _Aaaand_ one-two-three, one-two-three,” Sam chants “One-two-three. See this isn’t so hard. Not so different from drills, right?”

“I guess?” Steve says, not taking his eyes from the floor. Sam does in fact know how to waltz, and he’s been letting Steve lead him around the cleared living room while _Until We Meet Again Sweetheart_ plays sickly-sweet on YouTube. “You know I do like modern music, right?”

“We’ll try some Nicki Minaj next, if it’s not too much for you. We could probably waltz to _Starships_ ” Sam teases. They clomp around the room for a while, going in in-time but somewhat graceless circles while Natasha and Bucky glide around them like a pair of deadly Russian-speaking swans. They’re both _very_ good, naturally graceful and economical in their movements. Steve and Sam are brawlers at heart and are a little too heavy-footed to match them.

“I thought you said you took a dancing class,” Steve gripes.

“I never said I passed, did I?” Sam says, and tries to step on Steve’s foot.

“I’m doomed,” Steve moans.

“Just kidding, geeze. Relax, no ones gonna try and kick you out of anyplace because you’re not a perfect waltzer.”

They waltz for a while, then they two-step, foxtrot, and make a brave attempt at a samba, which falls apart almost immediately, but not before Steve almost breaks a side table.

“I did this a lot,” Bucky says as he leads Steve in a slow circuit around the room. “I was good at it.”

“You were very good. You never had an empty dance card as far I know. Girls were practically lined up around the block to dance with you.”

“You didn’t dance?”

“Not often. I was never any good,” Steve says, with a chagrined smile.

“You never _practiced_ ,” Bucky says, lifting his arm. Steve obligingly spins under it.

“Yeah, well, you need a partner if you’re gonna practice. The ladies weren’t exactly knocking down the door for me. You tried to teach me but I always got so frustrated that we quit.”

“You’re not so bad now,” Bucky teases. He tries to dip Steve, who resists as hard as he can until they topple over, grappling on the floor. Sam laughs out loud and ably dips Natasha, who shoots a challenging smirk at them.

“So, Nat, are we acceptable yet?” Steve asks, getting Bucky in a headlock and groaning when Bucky turns his head and licks wetly up his arm.

“No,” she says, twirling effortlessly under Sam’s arm. “But you’ll just have to do on short notice. Sam can help me keep you in line.”

They end up on the couch later, watching videos of the wildest swing dancing Steve has ever seen. Some of the moves look familiar, but he’d never seen them done in any of the clubs he and Bucky frequented. Occasionally Bucky will pipe up with an ‘I remember that one’ or ‘I tried that with Betty Hamilton once. I dropped her. She didn’t speak to me for days after’. He sounds unsure, quiet, as though every statement is a question. Some of the stories he ekes out are ones Steve’s heard a thousand times (he’d even been there for the Betsy Hamilton incident), but anything Bucky can remember is a treasure.

The first few weeks had been nothing but silence and icy proclamations of _I’m not him, I’m not the man you think I am, Bucky Barnes is dead, why can’t you get that?_ Steve will take anything he can get that isn’t _that_.

 

The place Natasha knows turns out to be a tiny jazz club in Manhattan, just big enough for a bar, a small raised stage, and a dance floor. The only seats are a bunch of mismatched dining room chairs lined up at the bar. Steve breathes relief, knowing that the faster, more difficult dances they’d tried were not an option in such a small space. He feels both overdressed and underdressed at the same time, though Natasha hand picked his outfit and assured him it was the height of style ‘Without trying to hard’. As it is, he looks around at the few other patrons and realizes that Natasha dressed them to blend in. It’s another relief for him. Natasha, for her part, looks amazing in a dress that imitates the style the dames back in Brooklyn used to wear, but much sexier than would have been acceptable. Still, even she blends into the background, especially when compared to the women dressed in vintage frocks with tattoos up their shoulders and necks.

“It’s a little hipsterish, but they have a good band rotation,” she explains as they sip their drinks.

Steve doesn’t quite understand the whole _je ne sais quoi_ of ‘Hipsterdom’ but the young people filtering into the bar, dressed in pseudo-retro clothes and drinking terrible beer, are polite enough. They also turn out to have pretty good taste in music, as the band playing that night is _very_ good. It’s a blend of swing and rock and roll that Steve finds himself tapping along to as he watches Bucky spin Natasha around the floor.

“He looks good, man,” Sam says. _Sam_ looks good too, though Steve refrains from saying it out loud. He’s right though; Bucky looks great. He’s still rough looking, like too many sleepless nights and too many days spent restless, but he’s got his color back and his hair is sleek and shiny in its stubby ponytail.

“It’s taken a lot of work to get him here,” Steve says.

“You did good,” Sam assures him. Steve has no barometer for mental health, but if Sam says Bucky’s doing well then it must be true. “C’mon, you gotta dance a little. I didn’t teach you to waltz for nothing.”

Sam pulls him out of his seat and pushes him in Nat’s direction. Natasha sweeps him up and sweeps him around the tiny dance floor; he keeps up, but Natasha does all the hard work. He dances with her, then Bucky, and then Sam. He even dances with a tattooed girl with vivid blue hair and a pierced lip. She’s all of about four feet tall but she still leads him. It’s _fun_. By the time Steve realizes it, he’s a little giddy. He and Bucky have to take a few breaks to go stand out front, but they stay for hours.

 _Just let me keep this_ , Steve thinks. _If I can keep this I’m set for life._


End file.
